Splotches of sunlight shone through a curtain full of holes as it flapped in a warm breeze. Moths had dined on the thin yellow cotton all winter; spring wind and rain would finish off the remaining tatters. A pink mold was growing on the mirror and dribbled down through decayed okra to the floor. Three books were stacked on Aunt Caitlin’s trunk, looking almost smart as new. He’d fastened Leaves of Grass together again, carving a red leather spine with swamp birds, bears, and Princess grinning — something Doc Johnson would surely appreciate.
Josie farted. It was air mostly and who knew how bad he smelled, but Aidan just wanted her to go. He wished for a hoodoo spell to make her disappear. Course, Redwood was too good-hearted to do him a hot-foot or drive-away spell. Josie’s eyes popped open as if she could hear his uncharitable thoughts.
“I was dreaming ’bout our wedding.” Josie stretched and purred at him. “I bet you could get that colored hoodoo gal to sing something and do us a good-luck spell.”
“Who, Redwood?” Aidan never expected Josie to hold him to a promise he’d made under duress.
“A wedding is the respectable thing to do. Not just the courthouse.” She scowled dark clouds ’cross her rosy complexion.
Aidan scowled back. “I don’t deny that, but…”
Josie never looked too happy with Aidan in the sober light of day. He didn’t much care for her either. She was a handsome woman a lot closer to thirty than he was, with curly hair and curves everywhere else too. A real hard worker, she scratched something from almost nothing without drying up. A plump pink breast flopped in his face, the nipple grazing his nose. Plenty of Josie Fields to make a man feel like a man, even if the man wasn’t sure anymore. But marry? Josie was somewhere to hide from haints and ghosts asking him to have mercy, somewhere to feel good for a moment. Marriage and love and ’til death do you part, that was something else. Didn’t he regret every time he’d been with her? How would he stand her their whole lives?
Truth be told, May Ellen still had her hands all over his heart.
“You promised.” Josie pulled away. Their sweaty skin stuck together. She had to peel herself off him.
“You really want to go through with that?” Aidan scratched his chin at Josie’s nodding head and pinched lips. What woman in her right mind would say yes to marrying Crazy Coop? “I’m good for a song and a roll in the hay, but everybody know only my mule, my Princess, can stand me over the long haul.” He laughed. Josie didn’t. She must be in a real fix, if he was the only one who could get her out. “May Ellen divorced me for extreme cruelty and drunkenness. The judge declared her a saint for putting up with me as long as she did.”
“I’ve seen how you are drunk.”
“No you haven’t.” Aidan snarled. Josie flinched and he gulped down rage. “Judge say, praise the Lord there ain’t no children.”
Her cow eyes bulged, like she’d seen a haint. “You trying to wheedle out of marrying me?” She looked ready to cry. Splotches of red spread ’cross her face, belly, and thighs. Hot shame flowed over him. Josie dragged strands of her hair into a knot at her neck. “Everybody say you ain’t worth a damn to yourself or nobody else.”
Aidan couldn’t deny this. He just shook his head at her.
“Why you like this?” Josie grabbed at her clothes.
Before he could say I ain’t never marrying again he remembered the child coming. “You don’t know who the daddy is, do you?” He stuck his legs into dirty pants and ripped the seam at the crotch.
Josie held her head high. “Something spooked you last night. I didn’t see nothing, but you did. That’s when you broke out the jug, so you wouldn’t see nothing else.” She pulled on her drawers under a stained and tattered skirt.
“They lynched a colored fellow over in Greenville,” Aidan said.
“Did you go watch?” She tottered out the bedroom.
“No.” Aidan jumped up and followed her. “Harry Evans did. He had a burnt piece of that poor fellow and was showing it ’round.”
“Maybe that ole sly darky got what he deserve,” Josie said. “You don’t know.”
“Who deserve that? Huh? HUH?”
She waved her hands for him to stop.
His mouth went dry but he couldn’t stop. “You know Harry. Harry usually like him a good lynching. He was in that posse what strung up Garnett Phipps.”
“How you know that?” Josie eyed him, her brows wrinkled, her lips trembling. “Nobody know who did that.”
He grimaced. “After strutting ’round last evening with his souvenir, Harry, he, he wasn’t right. Spooked his horse and had to walk five miles home and he come hollering in the door and then he took a knife to his mother-loving eye. He say haints were crawling in his skull and he aimed to dig ’em out. Threatened to stab anybody who come near him. Doc Johnson had to watch him bleed.”
“Hush!” Josie shouted and startled Aidan quiet. “Who want to hear all that? You gonna spook yourself. I’m sorry I said anything. I just want to know if you a man of your word, if you a decent man.”
Aidan’s legs were just as sturdy as butter. Anybody, please. Somebody do right. He held onto the stove. Have mercy. “So when you want to tie this knot?”
Josie trembled. Tears shimmered at the corner of her eyes as she pulled on her boots. “What you think of a week from tomorrow?”
“So quick?”
“Ma wants me out the house as soon as —”
“What the hell? I can do a week.”
“I want to hurry the wedding up so the baby won’t be born with a cloud of sin over his innocent head.”
“The cloud of sin is over us.”
“I don’t want to be living up under my mama another minute.” She trotted ’round his kitchen, poking and prying like it was hers already. “Is this beat up ole box what you call a coffee grinder?” Josie filled it with beans. “Won’t take long to get the wedding arranged.”
Aidan nodded. “Well…” Something fluttered from her skirt pocket to the ground. He scooped it up before she could. “What’s this?” AIDAN had been scrawled in what might have been blood on a scrap of cotton.
“Give it to me.” Josie glared at him, eagle eyes now.
“This ain’t blood from a wound, is it?” Aidan shuddered. The cloth felt hot. He almost dropped it.
She held out her hand. “I tole you, I ain’t seen blood for two months.”
He placed the frayed cotton on her palm. “You trying to hoodoo me?”
She stuffed it in her pocket. “If I am,” she moved close, lifted her face, exposing a blotchy throat, “it ain’t working. Spell s’posed to drive a man crazy with love.”
“Love from a spell ain’t love from the heart.”
“Uh huh.” Josie quivered but didn’t crack.
“Truth sound mean, but…” Aidan sighed. It was too late to take anything back. “Well, I can’t do much to make ready for a wedding. I gotta be gone for a few days.”
Josie hunched her shoulders and turned away. “Fine. I’ll take care of the fixings.” Grinding the coffee, she threw her whole body into each turn, her head bobbing like a purple swamp hen skipping ’cross lily pads.
“You a strong woman,” he muttered.
She grunted at this.
He really did admire her spirit. Maybe he could find love somewhere between them. “You ever seen those swamp birds, underneath all this blue and purple glory, they got big yellow clown feet, so they don’t sink when they run on water.”
“What you talking?” The crank moved along smooth. She grabbed a bucket from by the washbasin. “I’ll bring in some fresh water.” She sauntered past him without meeting his eyes, acting like she didn’t want him ’round his own house. “Go where you gotta go, just get on back here on time.”
“I will do.”
Two hours later, with a banjo slung over his back and a shoulder bag of books banging his side, Aidan set out on Princess for the Okefenokee Swamp.
Even with the sun heading down, it was too hot to see stra
ight. George was still going too fast for Redwood to keep track of skittish moss and roots or even how to find her way home. After three hours of them wandering and backtracking she was lost. The smoke from a pork barbecue filled her mouth with a good taste. She wondered if the people doing the roasting were hospitable souls who might set a plate for two strangers. She swallowed a touch of sadness. This was Saturday evening, and most young folk were sneaking out for music and dancing and maybe loving or whatever you wanted to call that burning itch that didn’t make you want to scratch but —
“Where are them no good sons of guns? You see how late it’s getting?” Up ahead in a clearing, Iona Richards was stowing jugs of moonshine under a bench and cussing and spitting. She was a big-boned, big-bellied woman in her forties. Everybody said she wore brogans from the Civil War and a rag on her head from Africa. Iona had married Uncle Ladd’s second cousin Leroy who hid a still somewhere. Aidan bought jugs from him. Sheriff had run Iona and Leroy from ’round Peach Grove way. Redwood heard tell they were hiding in the swamp. So this was where George was marching down secret paths to — a good time gathering before he took off bird hunting.
“Damn guitar playing conmen! I hope they hit Hell hard!” Iona cussed more than anybody Redwood knew, ’cept maybe Aidan.
Lanterns hanging from the pine trees weren’t burning yet, just waiting on the dark to do their magic. The ground was mostly needles and very springy. A barbecued hog steamed and smoked from a shallow pit. Iona’s twin boys sat at a table eating the first corn on the cob. Sweet potatoes, greens, boiled onions, corn bread, and hoppin’ John made Redwood’s mouth water. George paused and grinned.
“S’posed to be here an hour ago. When I see those no-good sweet-talking singers,” Iona held up a big knife, “I’m goin’ skin ’em, starting in the middle.” She went at the hog, slicing off slabs, cutting expertly to the bone. George stood behind her, laughing. Iona slugged him in the chest. “I got a tent if it rains, the best moonshine for miles. Who’s goin’ resist my chicken, my gravy and biscuits, my black-eyed peas and rice?”
“Nobody.” George smirked at Redwood and licked his lips. Hoppin’ John was his favorite. A skillet at the edge of the cook fire spit chicken fat at them. “I heard my sister’s stomach growling half an hour ago.”
“Yeah,” Redwood said.
“Them guitar-playing fools best not cross me,” Iona said.
“You paid those rascals a little something in advance.” George chuckled.
“Not much. Just to sweeten the deal.” Iona shook her head. “If I don’t have Bluesmen to get the fever up…”
“You get my fever up every time I’m —”
“Shush. What if Leroy heard you talking nonsense?”
Redwood turned from their teasing. The sun was an ember on the horizon. But dark night doused that so quickly, Redwood gasped. A silver mist hugged the ground. She shrugged off her pack and dropped onto a bench. Sitting, her swollen feet throbbed. The rash on her tiddies flared up, but she didn’t want to scratch now. She’d make a poultice if Iona would let her at a cook fire. Hunger churned up her belly and she didn’t have a nickel. She munched a dry biscuit from her pack. A crowd of young folk and a few gray hairs strolled in on the fog, smiling, slapping bugs. None of them touched the food, despite their hungry hound-dog looks. Fog curled ’round itchy feet. Redwood smiled as they danced a moment with the rising dew.
Iona shook her head and whispered to George. “Why pay hard earned money to be eating and drinking if there’s no good music to make it go down?”
“You always worry, but they’ll get here,” George said. “These fancy men got to stroll in late. It makes ’em sound better if everybody’s been waiting and waiting.”
A chill breeze from the east had Redwood shivering. She drew the air slowly over her tongue and then spit it out quickly. “Something bad happened near here.”
“Oh yeah. Ha ha ha!” Iona had a gunfire laugh, shoot you right down if you weren’t steady. “You ain’t heard?”
“No, Ma’am. We been on the road all day, missed the news,” Redwood said.
“That’s right.” George didn’t look eager to hear.
“Sheriff took a knife and stab his eye, screaming ’bout spooks and haints chasing after him. Bled to death on the kitchen table in his nightshirt.” Iona doubled up in another guffaw. “If ain’t no music, I guess we can dance to that.” She made a ghoul face and flapped broad arms, doing her best spook imitation. She stomped and cavorted through her reluctant customers and ’round the barbecue pit laughing herself to tears.
Nobody joined in. Sheriff Harry had never been a friend to colored folk, and him going by his own hand was something to celebrate, but dangerous spirits on the prowl was bad news. Haints didn’t mind what color folks’ skin was before raising havoc with their lives.
“Haints won’t chase you if you stop believing in ’em,” Redwood said. Twenty heads turned to gawk at her. George groaned.
Iona quit laughing. “What you know ’bout haints, gal?” Everybody stared now.
“Devil at the crossroads teach you what you want to know: dancing, storying. Mama told me —”
“That’s my little sister.” George sounded proud, but cut her off all the same. “She know something ’bout everything.”
“Is that right?” Beatrice, her skirt riding up her hip, made eyes at George and sashayed over to Redwood. When did she show up? “It’s what you don’t know that’ll get you, gal.” She talked like she knew the secrets of life or at least something juicy Redwood ought to know.
“So tell me what’s what. ’Cause I’d tell you,” Redwood said.
Beatrice puffed out her lips, shook her head, and sauntered away. The dust she raised stung Redwood’s nostrils.
“Where you get off, bumble Bea?” Iona winked at George. “Switching your behind in front of us that way?”
“How do Miz Iona. How do, George.” Beatrice flounced over to her best friend, Fanny, who was leaning against a dead pine tree, pouting. Fanny was sweet on Bubba Jackson, but he wouldn’t look at her no more. He had his cap set for Beatrice. Of course Beatrice was chasing after George. And George didn’t really want any gal from ’round Peach Grove. He wasn’t in love with nobody but hisself.
Aidan Cooper was Redwood’s secret friend. She could slip off to see him anytime, and they could talk everything to each other and not worry. That counted for a lot, but she didn’t have somebody special, somebody to make her heart dance. She sighed. Didn’t Aidan believe in her though, like a shooting star streaking through the night believed in light? Redwood caught a melody from the wind. She couldn’t have told you where the words come from:
I got a man say he love me true
He is watery deep like the sea and blue
I got a man sail in with the tide
Ain’t looking for a knot let alone a bride
A fellow she’d never seen before, wispy as a dragonfly and midnight dark, joined her, playing spoons. Another fellow strode up close with hazel eyes, a washbasin chest, and fat melon cheeks as he blew a jug. She remembered him from a year ago, a northerner, name of Eddie who sneered at her little tiddies. A third man with a ragged scar on his jaw and burn marks on his hands pulled a guitar from under his arm and found Redwood’s key: Milton, who’d played with Bert Williams and was marked up a bit since last she saw him. Iona’s husband, Leroy, stood behind them with a shotgun. His face was twisting and twitching like always, but he nodded at Redwood’s singing. Couples were dancing the needles and dirt to a dusty haze. George clapped his hands and winced in pain. He tapped his feet and chortled at Redwood who found another verse. She remembered now. Aidan wrote this song for a gal to sing, but Redwood wouldn’t do it with him when he asked her. She’d learned it on the sly though.
I got a man say he ride the sky
He do what he do and won’t tell you a lie
I got a man say he home on time
He just ain’t gonna say if his home be mine
S
inging as if possessed by the Holy Ghost, Redwood squinted through heavy-lidded eyes. Couples doing bird dances floated by her. Feathers sprouted on their necks and down their spines, ending in a flourish of flashy tail plumes. Bubba Jackson was a colossal dragonfly with bulging apple eyes and gauzy wings. He buzzed toward hummingbird Beatrice, but butterfly Fanny snatched him. They flitted off between jackrabbits, waddling pigs, and monster grasshoppers springing up to the treetops. Guitar playing Milton was a great blackbird warbling sweet nonsense as he plucked a giant harp with crystal strings. Redwood was a flash of lightning, sizzling through the mist. She hadn’t done heavy conjuring since before Mama went to Glory — or no, since she caught that storm with Aidan.
“Cut it out.” Dragon George was breathing fire and singed Redwood’s eyelashes. He grabbed her with scaly claws and shook her ’til her bones rattled. “What’s a matter with you? Mama said don’t play with lightning. You ’llowed to burn yourself up.” Now he was talking ’bout what Mama used to say. “You could do something you can’t undo!”
That scared Redwood for sure. She opened her eyes wide and the bird, bug, and animal shapes faded into regular people who were so drunk on the music, they didn’t even notice the difference. After a last snort of smoke, George let her go, and Redwood made up a new verse for Aidan’s song:
I got a man say he b’lieve in me
Gonna find a way for us both to be free
Hope’s a canoe, take us far from here
Where a man can be a man without no fear
George looked at Redwood like his heart would bust, like for once she knew something good. Iona crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at Redwood and the tardy Bluesmen as the song ended and the crowd cheered. “You know, I don’t pay you for carrying on with tone-deaf drifters who can’t tell time, Red. But you and your brother can eat all you want and spend the night in a bed.”
Redwood and Wildfire Page 5